This device can detect contaminated water without touching it

Believe it or not, testing for clean water has gotten ridiculously easy. Jerusalem-based company Lishtot invented a small, handheld device called "Testdrop" that tests water for purity without actually touching the water. The company just won first place for its invention at the CES Startup Night competition in Las Vegas.

I was actually pretty amazed to learn about such an invention. I'd tested water for contamination in high school science class, and I remember the process being long and complicated. We had to mix water samples with chemicals to figure out pH levels or something.

But this device is totally different. It fits in your hand and scans water in only a few seconds without even touching it.

It sounds crazy, but there's scientific logic behind it. Objects are always interacting with each other. The electrons in your shoes interact with the electrons in carpet, for instance. That's how this device works. It senses the electron patterns in the water without touching them. It knows what clean water electron patterns look like, and it knows what kind of patterns contaminated water molecules give off. Confused? Me too.

Still, the uses of this are pretty obvious. I could imagine testing water while camping or in foreign countries pretty often. But apparently, contaminated water is common much closer to home.

"As most of you know, coffee uses quite a bit of water," starts off a man in one of Lishtot's videos, blowing my mind with the realization that some people don't know that there's water in coffee. He proceeds to test a bunch of coffee at Starbucks shops around the country. In some of them, the device says the coffee is safe. In others, not so much. I'll admit, I was a little uneasy learning that I probably drink contaminated water all the time.